What does Starfield's silent protagonist mean for Bethesda RPG fans?

Bethesda recently revealed the gameplay of their upcoming space RPG Starfield through an extended showcase from the stage of the Xbox Bethesda Games Showcase 2022. Although indicated, what was not outright apparent from the 15-minute footage was whether the upcoming RPG will feature a silent protagonist or a voiced one.

However, Bethesda later confirmed on Twitter that their upcoming game would have a silent protagonist. This has spawned a lot of conversations among fans who have been awaiting the release of the game. Recalling recent examples from Bethesda’s portfolio of RPGs, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim features a silent protagonist, whereas Fallout 4 has full voice acting for all the dialogues of the player character.

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The silent protagonist is a step in the right direction for Starfield due to the enhanced roleplay potential alone

The design choice of a voiced protagonist versus a mute one is a polarizing debate among the audience of roleplaying games. Having a silent protagonist has quite a large number of upsides, especially for roleplaying enthusiasts. The lack of any voice acting leaves the tone of the dialogue up to players' imagination, while voiced dialogue leaves no room for interpretation.

Moreover, aside from the theoretical point above, another upside of a mute protagonist is a purely realistic one. Having to voice all protagonist dialogs takes a tremendous amount of resources, especially considering how large in scope modern RPGs like Starfield are.

A silent protagonist simply removes the artificial limit to writing and removes most of the constraints on creative freedom. From a game development perspective, it also allows a studio to change dialogue later on in the development, which, in the case of a voiced protagonist, would mean another round of voice acting sessions.

The lack of voice lines for the Starfield main character can only be summed up as Bethesda's course correction from Fallout 4. This debate aside, Fallout 4's dialog system was an ill-received element that severely limited roleplay possibilities.

Now we all know this kind of dialogue system would not work in a game like New Vegas, where a wide array of roleplay options exist. It only worked for Fallout 4 because roleplay was not the focus of Bethesda with that title. Hopefully, with all the talk of making Starfield a true RPG and "Skyrim in space," Bethesda will win over a lot of fans if they flesh out the dialogue system to be closer to New Vegas and Skyrim than the one in Fallout 4.

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What does it mean for Starfield mods?

Large quest mods have been few and far between in the case of Fallout 4. The reason for this scarcity is often attributed to the fact of the voiced protagonist, as it's nearly impossible to craft a large quest mod that integrates well with the rest of the game.

On the other hand, having a mute main character opens up the roleplay possibility to the maximum. This has played a key part in the existence and also the current development of large quest mods for Skyrim and New Vegas.

With a silent protagonist, Starfield, too, will most likely have endless possibilities in terms of ambitious quest mods. With "over a thousand planets to explore," a few modders are already itching to put new stuff in some of those surely.

Starfield is set to be released in the first half of 2023 on Xbox, PC, and Game Pass. It is an Xbox ecosystem exclusive, which means it will not come to PlayStation.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinions.